Environmental Justice Activist Jesse Marquez speaks with EcoJustice Radio how communities can prepare to confront the dangers of living around five oil refineries, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and hemmed in by the truck-clogged 710 and 110 freeways.

This episode of EcoJustice Radio we speak with Los Angeles's North East Trees organization regarding the powerful effect urban forests have on the health and well-being of our communities and the climate in general. We also look into programs that are working within those communities to provide equitable solutions, green jobs, and open spaces.

Grandmother Gloria Arellanes speaks on the heritage of the Tongva people, who inhabited and stewarded the area referred to as the "Los Angeles Basin" as well as the Southern Channel Islands. Grandmother Gloria offers her insights about the state of our world, youth, elderhood and the intergenerational cycle of learning, as well as how we might honor proper protocols, First Nations and all that is Sacred, amidst the backdrop of increasing urbanity, and the numerous perils now facing our environment.

On this show, Jessica Aldridge talks with Aura Vasquez, Environmental and Social Justice organizer and Candidate for Los Angeles City Council District 10, on how we change the “old boys club” and what this could mean for bringing social equity to the table.

The LA Mayor declared the city won't spend $5 billion to re-power three aging natural gas plants, and instead called for transitioning the nation's largest municipal utility to 100% clean, renewable energy: but how will we get there?

On September 8, the international Rise for Climate Day of Action is bringing people together for Climate, Jobs, and Justice, calling on governments, corporations, and organizations to initiate aggressive action on climate change, protect frontline communities, and create good jobs in the clean energy economy. Join us to Rise Together in Los Angeles on Saturday, September 8, in solidarity with events in San Francisco and around the globe that same day.

Southern California Gas Company was responsible for a recent chemical spill in the Rancho Park area of West Los Angeles that caused a strong gas-like odor to blanket surrounding neighborhoods. The Los Angeles City Council directed various agencies to investigate, with area residents and two councilmen voicing heavy criticism of SoCal Gas's handling of post-spill communications.

In "Angel Baby Blues," from Wanda Coleman's collection Heavy Daughter Blues, she offered a take on the failed promises of her home in Southern California. A prolific poet, fiction writer, and journalist, she was considered for a time Los Angeles' unofficial and controversial Poet Laureate.

Thousands marched on April 29th across the US and the world calling for solutions to the growing global climate crisis. In Los Angeles, thousands converged near a major petroleum refinery near two major ports in support of the nearby vulnerable communities calling for protections to their health and safety.

Donald Trump became the 45th U.S. president, and a majority of people were not celebrating. Thousands across the country protested peacefully, with solidarity across multiple sectors of society — with only a few clashes with police in Washington DC — to voice their disapproval to the incoming administration. Following are a sampling of images from this historic event.

The streets of Los Angeles played host last year to an audacious experiment in mobile opera called 'Hopscotch.' The recording will be released on January 13, and a concert will take place on Friday, January 20 (7:30 pm) at the University of Southern California’s Newman Recital Hall.

The latest NoDAPL March in Los Angeles, attended by thousands and organized by Indigenous and political groups, lays out The Way Forward on overcoming the incoming installed regime of the Orange One and his Corporate Hack Cabinet

Can re-purposed shipping containers become the next inexpensive, quick to construct, green building solution for affordable housing? Danish "starchitect" Bjarke Ingels, as well as a recent Orange County, California, project, assert yes to all of the above, but there are limitations.

dublab innovates music, arts and culture with it's freeform internet radio broadcasts in an age where access to mind-bending creation is both limited and expanded. Premiere sonic explorer, Mitchell Brown <> pioneered the movement with his ambient-abstraction-universe-sampling mix-match radio show "Glossolalia."

On May 14, thousands of people from across California came to Los Angeles to call for us to Break Free from Fossil Fuels. Jack Eidt argues the only way to do this is to reform our regulatory agencies recently captured by industry, in particular the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

On May 14, 2016 Californians will convene in Downtown L.A. for a mass action to stop oil and gas drilling in our neighborhoods. Los Angeles is home to the nation’s largest urban oil field in the United States—ground zero of California’s climate fight.

The ongoing ecological disaster has been “temporarily controlled” in Porter Ranch, California, an affluent Los Angeles suburb. Yet, families continue to get sick, and SoCalGas/Sempra wants to oversee the testing inside of homes. While the Regional Air Quality regulators requested they close the leaking well down, the AQMD failed to listen to community demands for a permanent shut down of Aliso Canyon Storage Facility.

Takeaways from a recent Green Festival Expo discussion on the Los Angeles River Revitalization include that the job of planning for water resiliency belongs to all of us, not Frank Gehry regardless of his recent charge, and we must also consider how public access, parkland, ecosystem restoration, cargo and passenger rail, bicycle greenways, and anti-gentrification environmental justice will fit into the mix. Collaboration is the key.

On July 11, Los Angeles joined communities across North America to call for a halt to shipping volatile and toxic crude oil via unsafe rail cars, which has caused numerous derailment explosions during the last six years as the practice has increased 4,000%. In particular, activists call for the City of L.A. to protect their communities and $1.3 billion river revitalization by opposing a crude by rail expansion in San Luis Obispo.

The time for action against oil trains is now! On Saturday, July 11, SoCal 350 Climate Action and its regional partners rallied at L.A.'s Union Station and held a teach-in in front of Olvera Street, calling for an end to bringing exploding bomb trains loaded with tar sands and other volatile crude oils into our communities.

Join SoCal 350, Tar Sands Action SoCal, and WilderUtopia in Pasadena, January 22nd for a fundraiser screening of Above All Else, a documentary on the fight against the Keystone South. Reserve Tickets TODAY! We must sell at least 78 tickets by January 15th to make the event happen! TIX: https://www.tugg.com/events/12825

Featured Stories

The Michael Moore-produced, Jeff Gibbs video, Planet of the Humans, uses the capitalism onslaught that has caused disaster across the planet as an Earth Day opportunity to lob spitballs at environmental movements and prominent advocates. While it can't even manage any more cogent solutions than vague assertions about curbing population and over-consumption, it also fails to see the monster who stands before it: the system, which needs to be overcome, immediately.

Now is the time to invest in a regenerative economy that supports climate finance at scale. Our banking and investment practices can proactively regenerate the planet and foster a clean, green economy that is both socially conscious and sustainable. EcoJustice Radio speaks with Tom Duncan of Earthbanc.

THE BOTTLE SCAM - EcoJustice Radio connects the dots between the Water Bottle Scam and the fight for Land, Water, and Indigenous Rights. This is PART FIVE of a special seven-part series, called, “The Plastic Plague: Connecting the Dots between Extraction, Inequity, and Pollution.”

EcoJustice Radio investigates the impacts plastics have on our personal health and quality of life. From food packaging to building materials, we cover the toxins types, corporate responsibility, and how can we avoid exposure. We dive into what it means to support the efforts of frontline communities to minimize exposure by reducing these toxic chemicals.

EcoJustice Radio visits Baltimore, Maryland, setting the standard for #ZeroWasteCities by ensuring social equity. Their racially and economically just Zero Waste Plan goes beyond the successful management of resources and waste by lifting up human rights values and ensuring that those communities who are historically burdened by the ill effects of our waste system are made a priority. Jessica Aldridge from Adventures in Waste interviews advocates from United Workers.

REFINEMENT - Once extracted, how does oil and gas become the resin that will eventually be the plastic we use in our daily lives? Then we buy these products, the social and environmental justice issues are covered up by cool marketing campaigns.

On today’s show Carry Kim speaks with special guest Torgen Johnson, an urban planner and community activist from coastal San Diego County here to discuss the stranded nuclear waste situation at the now closed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station located just a short drive south of Los Angeles. Nuclear waste has been described by Greenpeace’s Michael Stothard as “the most destructive and indestructible waste in history.” Torgen will shed some light on how we can remain safe nevertheless.

EcoJustice Radio and Adventures In Waste look at Single Use Consumption Culture and how proposed #AB1080 and #SB54 legislation in California attempts to reduce plastic pollution and support recycling and Circular Economy efforts.